Slayers
by Puppeteer of the Realms
Summary: A hunter fresh on the Guild's roster arrives in Val Habar, ready to prove his worth. His goal is simple: to become one of the greatest hunters of all time. The only things standing in his way: a virus, a sword, a Dragon, and a friend. That is, if his ego doesn't kill him first.


**Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own the Monster Hunter franchise. Monster Hunter is owned by Capcom.**

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A sharp knock against wood near Taven's head ripped him from sleep, quickly drawing his attention to the epicenter of the noise.

"C'mon hunter, rise and shine! We're in a stone's throw of town." The owner of the gruff voice behind a grisled smile was one of the other passengers aboard the sandskiff. An older gentleman with a graying beard - admittedly closer to white than gray - and the disposition of a worn, wise man.

The sudden interruption initially bothered and slightly angered Taven, but the news of their imminent arrival renewed his enthusiasm. He quickly stood from his narrow bunk and the two of them ascended a flight of steps to the upper deck. The sun was reaching its zenith for the day, not a single cloud marred the horizon in any direction.

The skiff lightly bobbed about on the almost liquid surface of the desert sands as they sailed ever onward toward town. "Where is it?" he asked as he squinted his eyes and scanned from side to side, not actually spotting the town itself.

The older man bumped his shoulder and walked up a set of steps to the bow to look over the ornate bone figurehead of the skiff. "C'mere, you can see it up here," the man offered. Taven quickly followed up the steps, skipping every other step and nearly tripping in his haste. He stood leaning against the figurehead to the left of the man and started scanning again. "There," the man said, pointing to a blurry speck on the horizon as he noticed Taven still searching fruitlessly. "Val Habar, the center of commerce in these parts."

"Finally!" Taven whooped as he leaned forward to try for a better look. "There's the place my adventure begins!" He craned his neck and blocked the sun with his hand as a visor, his grin stretching from ear to ear. As he stared, Taven noticed the horizon itself started to tilt on its axis. He squinted in confusion as the skewed horizon dipped further, until he started losing his balance and he had to brace against the ledge to keep from falling.

"Wha-" the man guffawed as the ship tilted even further, "the boat's rockin'!" The skiff suddenly jerked in the other direction, righting its buoyancy and spilling both the passengers, and several of the deckhands to the floor. The very sands under the ship started swelling and bowing unnaturally, bobbing the vessel about like a bath toy.

When the violent bucking finally ended, Taven cautiously rose to his feet, stricken with confusion and wonder at the bizarre storm-like tide of sand. "What the hell was that?!"

"Nothin' good…" the old man whispered. He looked to the sky, proving his suspicion true as he saw a formation of snake-headed remobra prowling the airspace. "Nothin' good at all." Remobra in the skies above a skiff so close to port could only mean one thing: an Elder Dragon.

Just as the commotion seemed to level out and come to an end, a massive beast breached the surface and thrust its massive horn skyward, followed quickly by an ear-shattering roar. The beast was an enormous mass of bony plating, thick scales, and jagged teeth. The dreaded Dah'ren Mohran.

"To your stations!" the captain bellowed. The two cannons and ballista on the port side were manned and primed to fire as the remaining deckhands began muscling the cannonballs and harpoons to the weapons themselves. The Dah'ren slowly rolled to its left, before rolling back and quickly bashing its thick spines into the hull of the skiff. The cannons opened fire, letting loose two concussive blasts, propelling the heavy explosive balls into the beast's armored hide, while the ballista buried a barbed harpoon a foot into the plates.

The ship violently rocked and tilted until the outstretched platform on the starboard side of the ship was skimming the surface of the sand. Everyone not already clinging to a siege weapon had to grasp at the deck boards for dear life.

Taven was hopelessly thrown from his feet in the turmoil, and quickly tumbling toward the hot sands under them. A hand clamped down on his wrist, with him hanging over the railing and his feet brushing against the sand. He looked up to see the stranger gripping a rope tied to the mast with one hand, both feet braced on the rail, and his other hand the only thing between Taven and almost certain doom.

"Hup!" the man grunted as he heaved Taven back on the deck in a single try.

"Th-thanks," Taven sheepishly groaned as he steadied himself. "What's that?" he asked, watching as the man produced a small, large-caliber handgun from inside his red jacket.

"Our best shot," the man mumbled as he opened the barrel and slipped a large red cartridge in before closing it again. He cocked the hammer and fired it straight up. The round screamed through the air before detonating in a cloud of red smoke as a bright red flame at the center burned and slowly floated down.

The men on deck were scrambling and sustaining a consistent barrage of cannon and ballista fire, with another shot echoing out every thirty seconds or so. The Elder Dragon put up a fight, but soon other skiffs started flanking the Dah'ren from every side. One ship in particular, one with a black sail and a shining gold figurehead, took the charge.

With four cannons and three ballista on both broadsides, the ship opened fire with a hail of explosive fury. The ballista fired harpoons with ropes tied to the ends, tethering the ship to the beast. Taven was awestruck, he rushed to the rail and watched with amazement as three hunters, armed to the teeth with incredible weaponry, _boarded_ the Dah'ren Mohran. Two of the hunters placed barrels they were carrying near a scaley lump behind the wall-like ridge of the creatures back, while the third hunter jumped and bounded to its head.

The first two hunters lit long fuses attached to the barrels and scurried back off onto the black-sailed ship. The third continued their acrobatic trek to the beast's horn. The hunter unsheathed a massive black katana and buried it half-way into the solid bone, using it as a makeshift handhold. Seconds later, the fuses burned into the barrels, igniting the bombs and ripping a shockwave through the Dah'ren's body. Taking that as a cue, the hunter dropped a small object to the side of its face, which detonated halfway down.

Coupled with the massive explosion on its exposed back, and the incredibly loud grenade, the Dah'ren started viciously writhing back and forth in the shifting sands. Fire and smoke billowed from behind the crest of the Dah'ren's back, and shards of bony plating splintered and tumbled into the sands. The Elder Dragon gave one more violent buck, heaving with all its might to dislodge the hunter.

The beast thrust its massive horn straight into the air at breakneck speed, and the hunter pulled the length of their blade from the bone and leapt free, straight down to the skiff Taven was riding. The figure was a blurred silhouette flying straight for them, far faster than Taven could track. In a mere second, the hunter's momentum slammed flat into the deck. Taven reflexively covered his face with his arms, expecting the hunter to slam into the deck and, well, _not_ survive.

To his surprise, the hunter almost casually landed in a crouch, with one hand on the deck, and the other outstretched for balance. Also to his surprise, and resulting wandering gaze, was the figure of the woman in black before him. She was clad in matte, off-black cloth that almost looked like feathers or scales. Her armor was that of the Nargacuga, minimalistic, strong where it counted, and quite flattering to her figure. A deadly shinobi to the core.

The woman stood and quickly made her way to stand on the end of one of the port cannons, craning forward and keeping her balance as she vigilantly scanned the Dah'ren. The eerie silence following her landing had the entire crew on deck uneasy, yet not one of them made any effort to address her.

The old man wordlessly followed the woman and braced his right foot on the railing and watched for signs from the great beast. "Why.." he mumbled while pulling his large red hat further forward and down, almost in disgust.

Taven rushed forward and shot his eyes back and forth from the massive Elder Dragon writhing in the sand, to his nameless friend, and the Hunter on the cannon. "What? Why what?"

The woman finally spoke in a low tone, almost in a whisper. "Why keep going? Why run? Wait.." She paused and leaned further over the edge of the cannon with one foot in the air behind her as a counterbalance, turning her gaze to the growing cloud of sand behind the fleet of skiffs. Through the cannon fire and resulting explosions, another growing rumble began to invade the air around them. "Run.. Running!" she said, bounding from the cannon to the stern of the vessel and climbing the massive hunting gong. "It's running!"

"That thing?! Running?! From wha- WOOAH!" Taven barked as the skiff was violently shunted up and out of the sand, then landing back down to the surface, hard. Tumbling helplessly down, Taven could do nothing as his head slammed into a metal grate on the deck, flushing his vision and muffling all sensations.

The last thing he saw as his consciousness drained was a pair of impossibly huge tusks plunging up to the heavens, smashing into the single horn of the Dah'ren Mohran.

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A/N: Hello fellow hunters! It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, here, on the stage of one of the most addicting franchises of all time: Monster Hunter.

I was struck, hard, by inspiration for this universe one day, and it grew far faster than any of my other head-canons to date. I hope you enjoy!

On a side note, if you found me through my works in RWBY, I want to solemnly apologize for my absurdly extended absence. Hopefully someday very soon, I will return to it.

~See you on the other side


End file.
